The battle of evermore Lyrics

Dear Mr Spiny unclawed Lobster
I was using sarcasm to make a point. My point being that two people can look at one thing and develop completely different interpretations. Neither is right or wrong, they just see things in a different way because no two people are alike. I think this is especially evident when we start looking at the works of artists. Whether it be a contemporary painting on the wall,poetry or a beautiful song like the battle of evermore. You can't always expect that the artist intended for their piece to have just one interpretation. I think the battle of evermore is more of a theme about war than just a story about the lord of the rings. Thereyouhaveit! Carpe Langousta? I think somebody better put down their DOOBY! :)

Appreciate your interpretations but the song that you refer to is The Battle of Nevermore I believe, not Going to California. Maybe put the doobie down when posting. :-)

Interesting how Zep was ahead of their time w/ this song long before a movie was ever made of the story.

I think there are some misinterpreted words in the lyrics above. "I hear the forest assunder" not "the horses thunder". And "repay do not forget" - not "which they do not forget"

What most people dont know is that song "Going to california" is really about Frodo's Journey into Morodor. Think about it! I figured that out right after I smoked a doobie. I wonder if plant and page were high when they wrote this one?

"No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold"-This references samwise rescuing frodo from the tower with that magical light Galadriel gave sir Frodo. Hello!

"The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom and walked the night alone"-when Frodo breaks from the fellowship

"Oh, throw down your plow and hoe, race now to my bow

Side by side we wait the might, of the darkest of them all"- Rohan retreated to helms deep. Farmers had to put down there plows and pick up swords and they waited in that fotress for saurumans army no joke.

"Oh well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow
Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow"-Obviously Rohan is waiting for gandalf to return with reinforcements(Eomer and Rohirrim) as he promised!

"The Queen of Light took her bow and then she turned to go"-Queen of light is Galadriel because she can lift her hand and envelop herself with a great light. Just ask frodo.

The rest is obvious! B+

runes writ in gold are words on the One Ring. nothing bad about LOTR in lyrics, its how you analogize the fantastic elements (avalon,lotr) and how its synonomous with modern times

The song was made up on the spot by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. It has references to Lord of the Ring,Arthurian legend and other mystical lore... Perhaps inspired by Gandalf's Garden? Anyways no need to argue against the LoTR reference, Ringwraith did not exist outside of LoTR. If it bothers you that the song makes references to LoTR then make up your own meaning for it. Nothing wrong with that, in fact that's what music is all about.

The reference to Avalon is clear. The Queen of light and prince of peace are religious and significant but not as preaching.If you think about the history of Avalon and Glastonbury, there is a time when the old religion, the goddess religion, is driven underground and Christianity becomes the religion of the land. It's not a peaceful transition. This song carries much of that. A LOTR reading cannot work for many reasons, but highest among them, the reference to Avalon.

It could be dark and it could be light, maybe it is both. One does not exist without the other. The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath, bring the balance back. Perhaps allowing the existence of both in balance is better than constantly fighting about it?

The tune for this was written by guitarist Jimmy Page at Headley Grange while he was experimenting on the mandolin owned by bassist John Paul Jones.[1][2] As Page explained in 1977:

"Battle of Evermore" was made up on the spot by Robert [Plant] and myself. I just picked up John Paul Jones's mandolin, never having played a mandolin before, and just wrote up the chords and the whole thing in one sitting.[3]

Vocalist Robert Plant had recently been reading about Scottish folklore and this inspired him to compose the lyrics to this song.[1] The song, like some others by the group, makes references to The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Plant felt he needed another voice to tell the story and for the recording of this song folk singer Sandy Denny was invited to duet with Plant. Denny was a former member of British folk group Fairport Convention, with whom Led Zeppelin had shared a bill in 1970 at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music. Plant played the role of the narrator and Denny represented the town crier. Page elaborated:

[The song] sounded like an old English instrumental first off. Then it became a vocal and Robert did his bit. Finally we figured we'd bring Sandy by and do a question-and-answer-type thing.[3]

To thank her for her involvement, Denny was given the symbol on the album sleeve of three pyramids (the four members of Led Zeppelin each chose their own symbols for the album). This is the only song Led Zeppelin ever recorded with a guest vocalist. In an interview he gave in 1995 to Uncut magazine, Plant stated:

[F]or me to sing with Sandy Denny was great. We were always good friends with that period of Fairport Convention. Richard Thompson is a superlative guitarist. Sandy and I were friends and it was the most obvious thing to ask her to sing on "The Battle of Evermore". If it suffered from naivete and tweeness—I was only 23—it makes up for it in the cohesion of the voices and the playing.[4]

"The Battle of Evermore" was played live at Led Zeppelin concerts during the band's 1977 concert tour of the United States. For these live performances, Jones sang Denny's vocals with Plant and played acoustic guitar whilst Page played mandolin. Sometimes drummer John Bonham sang Denny's vocals instead of Jones. Page and Plant also recorded a version of the song in 1994, released on their album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded. Singer Najma Akhtar sang Sandy Denny's vocal part.

Fairport Convention performed "The Battle of Evermore" with guest vocalists Robert Plant and Kristina Donahue at Fairport's Cropredy Convention on 9 August 2008. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss regularly performed "The Battle Of Evermore" on their tour of USA and Europe in Spring and Summer 2008

my god... its just disrespect zeppelin say that they make this song for lotr.... i mean really? come on , zeppelin its much more deep then that and allways remember the real meaning of the lyrics is hidden , its on you to interprate as you want but , LOTR REALLY?.... i mean, it could be based on lotr or the bible but the idea is that you can take the metafore and use it to real life , not tales of epic worlds..... lets try to get serious and respect gods of music like zeppelin

You guys will probably dismiss me as a religious nut upon reading my first line, but the point that I'm making is logical even if you don't believe in such things. Whether or not you believe in Satan or the Bible is irrelevant, what matters is that Plant and other members of Led Zeppelin DID. I know that Tolkien believed as well, and he infused biblical analogies into his books. So "the battle of evermore" is not written about LOTR itself, but the two scripts share biblical references and analogies. For example, in the bible, Satan is often depicted as a dragon of darkness. The "Prince of Peace" is a common name for Jesus throughout the new testament. In the Bible, in older translations, demons are called ring wraiths. Also, "the battle in the sky... The mortals never know" is a reference to the conflict between demons and angels all around us that we cannot see. and in response to the review below, an occultist and a satanist are two names for the same thing. Desite what people say, Plant was a satanist. On many Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant albums you can find the words "do what thou wilt" which is the core statute of the satanic bible (yes there IS a satanic bible). Don't get me wrong, I love Led Zeppelin, they were masters of music. they might not have been the best role models, but the magic of their music demands reverence.

OKAY. GEEZ. yes, they are words that describe a conflict of good and evil, but it was based on Lord Of The Rings. If anyone knows Tolkien, they'll know that he was a huge Christian enthusiast. (In fact, it was he that gave his friend C.S. Lewis christian influences for some short stories, and Lewis went on to publish a piece of fiction called The Chronicles of Narnia. You may have heard of it.) But the band really has nothing to do with Christianity at all. What does a Zep fan care about with the Bible anyway? oh, and on a side note, IT FRICKIN SAYS RINGWRAITH IN THE SONG.

This sing is influenced by SCOTTISH folklore and Lord of the Rings. Period. Also, all you religious zealots, we don't need nor want your two cents...unless its something positive about zeppelin and their music.

Each of us are either in the light or in the dark. Read the lyrics again and decide if its light or darkness. I will always admire Led Zepplins music but have come to be greatly dissapointed in a lot of their lyric subject matter and view most of it as glorifying darkness. That is once I actually took the time to read the lyrics.

Aleister Crowley was not a satanist. he was an occultist(among other things),not the same. maybe you should use your common sense to know what's what before you post it and call other people naive. Plant is a great admirer of all things mystic, the old English legends and lore and the writings of the Celts. It's been said he was immersed in The Lord Of The Rings around this time and many of his lyrics reflect that. i'm sure there are lots of "hidden" meanings there as they are everywhere.